Swimming and music again.

Going swimming, I’ve been trying to improve my crawl. My style isn’t so bad, but I run out of breath too soon – I am only breathing on one side (the right) and not deeply enough.  Well, how hard can it be to unlearn the habits of a lifetime? Much more difficult than you can imagine, I’m telling you.

After a time, I decided I needed some support in habit breaking, and booked four lessons. My teacher is just about young enough to be my grandson, but I’m not letting that bother me. So after much flogging up and down the bath with floats, either legs only or just one arm working, I have made the following important discoveries.

• My legs are pathetically weak.

• I can’t get the timing right on my left side, and try to breath far too late in the arm movement, with the result that I swallow large quantities of water.

• Swallowing large quantities of water is really unpleasant, and tends to make you feel below par for the rest of the morning.

• It’s really hard to learn to swim, and I have more sympathy than previously with people who’ve never managed it.

• If you don’t breath out under water, after two lengths you  get to the point of being so short of oxygen that your fingers tingle.

• There’s nothing like swimming for making you really starving.

Still, cheering news – today I managed two whole lengths, breathing on alternate sides. I can only manage it if I swim slowly, but, there you are – you can teach an old dog new tricks.

And here’s another update, this time on music. I saw that the Broadway cinema was showing Thomas Ades’ opera The Tempest, as part on the New York Met live series. I’m a bit of a snob about these filmed performances – it’s a lot of money for something that’s a long way from the live experience. But, if I’m going to see The Tempest at all, it’s going to be a filmed one. I can’t see us getting to Covent Garden again, and Opera North isn’t at all likely to put it on.

So I bought myself a ticket and went off, alone, as nobody I know felt they were likely to enjoy it. I wasn’t at all sure I would enjoy it, to be honest. I’ve only listened to Ades’ Asyla and had rather a mixed impression. I’d even promised my husband that I wouldn’t be proud and would leave half way through if I really hated it.

Well, it was great. I loved it. I thought the acting was really good, which is important when it’s filmed because you’re getting much closer to the action than you would in the opera house. Simon Keenlyside (whom I rate highly anyway) was particularly good. He’s hardly off stage. He has an impressive presence, and a wonderful physique and face for Prospero.

I think the music must be very hard to sing, and sometimes I didn’t quite “get” it, but the love duet, Ariel’s music, the trios and quartets, and Prospero’s renunciation of his powers, were gorgeous. The end was really moving. 

So, well worth the ticket, and I shall keep my eyes open for other opera screenings, but what I really want, is to see The Tempest  again.  No chance, I fear.